Oscar

Having never been a cat person (or a pet person, really), no one was more shocked than I when I accepted the ownership of Oscar.  He's a 16-month-old tuxedo tabby who is quiet, playful and has a cute way of bumping his entire body against your legs in order to get free pets from you.  He doesn't seem to eat a lot, uses his litter box (and then comes and tells you about it) and like to snuggle while you watch TV.

There is one slight problem: I'm allergic to the buttercup.  Not deathly or anything - the doctor says it will either get better or get worse - no way to tell without just giving it a shot.  So Oscar moved in on Thursday night.
I decided to keep anywhere with my clothes off limits - bathroom, laundry room, front closet and bedroom.  Oh, and the kitchen counter because that's just gross.  I have employed the spritz bottle.  But this cat is smarter than the average bear.  It took him a couple of hours to learn how to open the front closet (and find a perch in it).  I went to work and came back to find my plant (which had like five babies)  had been molested and her offshoots all dead.  And then, best of all, sometime on Friday night, he figured out how to open the bedroom door without the door handle.  It took me the better part of a year to realise my door could do that.  So now there are no safe rooms and i can't really train him because I'm gone like ten hours a day, so i can spritz all i like while I'm home, but he has free reign when I'm not so what's the point?

And all this would be fine if i didn't sneeze and get all red-eyed after a petting session...

He's just so cute when he's playing and sleeping and chasing the red ribbon (which he somehow got knotted around his tail so spent five minutes chasing himself around the house).  He loves to sleep on you and chases things in his dreams (birds or spray bottles?  we'll never know).   Oh Oscar, you have brought absolute chaos into my well-ordered life.  I think I kinda like it.  Let's hope you don't learn how to open a locked bedroom door and smother me in sneezes while i sleep.